The Rain House
by planet p
Summary: Change of title! AU; the TARDIS breaks down, leaving Rose and the Doctor stranded in the middle of a forest. Rose/Nine


**The Rain House **by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _Doctor Who_ or any of its characters. I don't own _My Heart Belongs to Daddy_.

AU; written in 2006 or 2005, title comes from Pink's _Sober_, previously titled _I Stayed Up Again_.

* * *

Rose knew they were still somewhere in England, but couldn't be sure where.

The forest that surrounded them was lush and delicate.

The Doctor looked around Rose sniffed loudly. She was just starting to get over her cold. Everything seemed so natural. The air was actually fresh, and clean. Rose grabbed the Doctor's arm and did a little dance. "It's so lovely here," she told him.

Light was filtering down through the trees and onto the needle covered ground. "I love the smell of pines," Rose continued. "This is just like in a fairytale. So pretty."

"It's nice, isn't it," the Doctor agreed.

They walked for a while, in silence, before they came to a very old house. It was pretty, and made of stone with a rambling garden and ivy climbing up the walls.

Suddenly it started to rain and the sky thundered loudly.

Rose ran up to the heavy wooden door and banged on it. It was raining even harder now. Rose beckoned for the Doctor to hurry up. They could shelter under the archway of the door.

But it was no use. It had been a long run up to the house from the wrought iron gates and they were soaked through. Rose was shivering and huddled next to the Doctor. He put his arms around her. So much for her starting to recover from her cold.

* * *

Rose awoke. She was lying on a rug next to a large fire. The Doctor had seated himself down next to her on the rug. She sat up suddenly. "Where are we?" she asked.

"Inside." The Doctor was gazing at the fire.

Rose wondered how long he'd been sitting beside her staring into the fire, because that's the sort of thing he did.

It was then that a very pretty young woman glided over. To Rose anyhow it seemed as if she had glided. She was very graceful.

"Hello," she said, "I'm Daphne, but you can call me Ne – everyone does."

"Rose," Rose pointed to herself, and then to the Doctor. "And this is the Doctor, but you can just call him Doctor – I do."

Daphne laughed and it sounded as soft as a breeze rustling through leaves, or the tinkling of water across rocks.

Rose stood up and held out her hand to help the Doctor up. Daphne wouldn't be able to. She was too small boned and rather slim and wore a dress of white silk and some beige papery-thin material. Rose was somehow glad.

The room was very grand and rather elegant.

There were soft footsteps on the polished floorboards as a young man approached. "Daphne," he exclaimed, "how good to see you up and about."

She laughed again.

Rose frowned. That laugh was really starting to get on her nerves.

"And how is our young lady Rose?" the young man asked.

"Better now, I take it," the Doctor replied, turning to Rose.

"Oh yes – much better, thanks." She put a hand on hip and stretched her back.

"Oh – this is Erin," the Doctor told her.

Rose held out her hand for him to shake, but much to her surprise he kissed it instead. She smiled politely and sat down on one of the armchairs. The Doctor came and stood next to her.

Daphne sat down too. Erin, however, walked over and put an old record on. They talked for a while about travelling, seeing they had said they were travellers, music, and doctors. Then much to the Doctor's delight, they had a few games of chess. The first time the Doctor won, and Rose, crunching on some dark chocolate with a peppermint filling that Daphne said she liked, jumped up and clapped hysterically.

Daphne just laughed in that eerie laugh of hers.

The next six games the Doctor let Daphne win. Rose seemed slightly put out. Until of course Erin poured them all some alcohol. Rose frowned. It was green. But drank it all the same and placed her glass back on the table to be refilled.

Daphne stared, she had barely taken a sip from hers, but Erin stood up from the couch he was seated on and poured her some more.

"Mmm, Rose, careful with that stuff. That's absinthe," the Doctor told her, taking the glass off her and drinking it himself once she was onto her third glass.

Rose went and sat on the arm of his chair to watch the chess game, since Daphne had suggested the Doctor needed a little help to win.

Rose wasn't going to let Daphne win. The Doctor had to be very clever to evade Rose trying to make sure he didn't lose.

Around eleven, however, the Doctor noticed that Rose had fallen asleep and politely taking leave of Daphne's company carried Rose to a room that Erin had pointed out.

It was when he got to the door that Rose woke up, and told him: "I can walk for myself, you sill thing."

He put her down and opened the door to her room, but she had already ran off up the hall.

"Rose!" he shouted and ran after her. She had been acting a bit tipsy before she had fallen asleep, falling over her own feet, kissing him on the head every time he lost a piece and dragging him off to dance to music that was no longer playing. She was liable to do something silly.

He figured that he shouldn't have let her drink so much absinthe. It was around 70% proof. He stopped and looked around for her, but she was nowhere to be seen. He hit his head into the wall. He cursed loudly; not in English of course, but some strange alien dialect he had learnt as a schoolboy. What if she hurt herself?

He had come to a door which was ajar. There was no light coming from the door, but Rose could have been hiding. He pushed the door open and walked cautiously in. He could hardly see a thing, the curtains were drawn. "Rose," he called softly, as he cautiously made his way to the window, thinking that he might open the curtains. The moon would be full tonight. Someone had however thrown themselves at him and knocked him onto the floor.

"Doctor, there you are," Rose shrieked cheerfully.

"Rose. Rose, c'mon, get off me. I can't breathe." Rose had planted herself on his chest and she was quite heavy. The next second she had started kissing him.

He tried to push her away but didn't want to hurt her. She stood up and yanked him up off the floor. He stood up, but he was blind, he couldn't see a thing. Rose had obviously shut the door. She grabbed him again and pushed him against the window. In his efforts to get away from her the curtain rail pulled off its hanging. Light streamed into the room.

He stared at Rose. She was beautiful, more beautiful than she had ever seemed before. And she was smiling – at him. She was eating a jelly baby and had pulled its head off with her teeth. She giggled and held out the other piece for him to eat. The moon was full indeed and dominated the sky with its light, seeming to make the stars less bright.

The Doctor seized her around the waist and kissed her. She shrieked, stumbling back and falling onto the bed.

* * *

The Doctor could feel the light on his face before he awoke. He sat up and suddenly noticed Rose there beside him. Memories of that night came flooding back. He had to get away.

* * *

When Rose awoke the sun was high in the sky. She yawned and stretched her arms out beside her. The sunlight felt warm on her face. She looked down and suddenly gasped, pulling the sheet up around her. No – she hadn't. She felt bad, and the sunlight now made her feel sick. She stood up, the sheet still wrapped around her. There were jelly babies scattered across the dusty floor.

She was cold. Where was the Doctor? She hoped she wouldn't have to tell him what she had done, when she realised that he already knew. The Doctor had left a note. It read: "Gone to the TARDIS. Gonna see if she'll run now. Don't be too long getting up."

When she got round to going downstairs Daphne wasn't up, but Erin spoted her and said good morning.

She talked to him for a while before leaving. The sky was no longer cloudy, but a cold wind was blowing.

The cold and stillness outside stirred something in her and she was sick behind a large tree.

"Sorry," she muttered to no one.

Eventually she found the TARDIS but didn't feel like going in. She wouldn't know what to say, so she just stood there, willing it to disappear. But it didn't, and when the door opened and the Doctor stepped out the reality of how long she must have been standing there, just staring, set in.

"I…" she started, but couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Sorry, Rose. No go. I'll have to fix some components and run some minor tests yet. You run along back to the house, its cold out here…"

Rose nodded silently, staring at her feet instead of the Doctor.

The walk back to the house was a relief to her, but it also upset her. She just wanted to be back home. Back in her own bed. With her mum in the next room watching telly or making tea. And the milk bar down the road.

Rose now thought of all their previous adventures. She had thought nothing of their closeness, thought how it was just how he was, and it had seemed that it was just how he was – childish in his own way, although he was already 900 years old.

She now shied away from the thought of that closeness: the holding hands, the hugging, the silly jokes, the teasing. It had been a relief to her that she hadn't been pushed right back into that predicament. Perhaps, she thought, she could take the train home. She dreaded the thought of having to be holed up in that tiny blue box with him, despite the "small on the outside, big on the inside" thing.

Transcendental, that's what he had called it. Boo hoo – she no longer cared.

Back at the house she sat in the kitchen and ate toast. She imagined that the whole house was silent except for her crunching. The thought comforted her. No Doctor to start on about all his techno stuff or her domestic issues and the fact that she was human and he was not so that made him special or something. No, there was none of that. Just silence. She licked the crumbs off her lips and smiled suddenly.

Standing up and turning towards the door she shrieked and backed against the table. It was Daphne. Rose held her chest. "Oh it's only you, thank goodness."

Daphne fixed her with the most eerie stare.

"I… I'll just go then," Rose put forth, pointing timidly to the door.

"I rather thought we could talk," Daphne said, the firmness of which shocked Rose. Her voice wasn't soft like it usually was, and it didn't float, but was direct. (Not forceful but just not Daphne either).

"I… okay." Rose forced herself back into her chair.

Daphne made her slow graceful walk over to the table and sat down opposite Rose.

"So how do you like the country, then?" Daphne asked in that lifeless voice.

"It's, it's nice. Fresh and… all. The trees are really nice. There's so many. Much more than we have at home."

Daphne hadn't moved or adjusted her gaze. She just stared, stiff as if she were a statue.

"So where is your companion?"

"Out… for a walk. He likes that. To go walking and tell no one where he's going." Rose wished he did, then immediately regretted the thought.

"He is just perfectly delightful isn't he? So what does he do?"

Perfectly delightful? Rose tried not to laugh.

"He's not a doctor if that's what you mean, not even close to. He… um… is kind of eccentric. Doesn't do much you would understand. Even gives me a headache sometimes."

"The terriblest," Daphne agreed, and said no more.

Rose frowned. Something dark red was running down her face into her mouth. It was blood.

"You have a nosebleed," Rose told her, and to her utter astonishment Daphne smiled. She wiped the blood away on her perfectly white sleeve.

"Do you sing?" Daphne asked.

"Ah… no… not exactly," Rose had stated to fidget and scrape the polish from her fingernails.

"I used to sing," Daphne told her, and then she said, "Could you sing something for me?"

Rose was taken off guard and stared open-mouthed, but only for the tiniest of moments, and then nodded.

"Yeah." She didn't know why she had agreed and could have almost kicked herself for her stupidity. She would only embarrass herself.

"My heart belongs to Daddy," she began it a bit nervous at first, "so I simply couldn't be bad. Yes my heart belongs to Daddy. Da da da da da da da da da da…" She breathed in silently, getting into the song now. "So I want to warn you laddie, though I know you're perfectly swell, that my heart belongs to Daddy. Cos my Daddy, he treats it so well…"

"Doctor!" Daphne suddenly announced.

Rose nearly jumped out of her seat. She spun around to see the Doctor leaning in the doorway, not smiling, but not frowning either.

Rose, taking leave of her seat by knocking it to the floor in her haste, ran from the room and all the way up the hall out of sight.

The Doctor shrugged and picking up Rose's seat made to make Daphne a tea. Daphne was staring at the now empty doorway.

* * *

Rose stayed in her room and slept. Sleep however couldn't drive the memories of the previous night away, so instead she cried.

* * *

She was cold and her body shivered uncontrollably, and her teeth chattered. She didn't go down to the lounge for fear that the Doctor would be there.

She remembered his voice when he had told her that the TARDIS was not yet ready. Plain as ever. Did he feel nothing? She didn't care. She hoped that he felt nothing, he was no human after all, he was inhuman.

She pulled the blankets up around her, her toes were freezing and her legs had gone numb. It seemed weird that she hadn't felt cold that night. Rose knew it had been cold, and she had only had a sheet to keep her warm.

She shifted in her bed so that she was gazing out the window. The blankets rustled crisply. They were new or newly washed and dried at least. They smelt of soap powder. Rose was glad. She lay down and shut her eyes. But this didn't help. She thought back to the darkness of that previous night, and how she hadn't been scared without a nightlight or her blue furry teddy cos the Doctor had been there instead. He had made sure that monsters wouldn't come in the night and take her away. She knew that it was the belief of a seven-year-old, but now she also knew that monsters did exist. Monsters that would come and take you in the night.

Not all of those other monsters, just the night-monsters. And the Doctor had made sure that they hadn't. Don't be silly, she told herself, it had nothing to do with him, the dirty, rotten, lazy rag-about.

She burst into a fit of coughing that would surely carry down to the lounge. When she had finally stopped coughing she could feel her heart racing in her chest, just as it had that night, and she had been filled with the most wonderful feeling in the world, next to food (chips) and beauty sleep, Jackie, Peter, and kicking alien butt. She started to cry. She didn't want to remember all of that.

She felt dirty, and scratched at her arms where the Doctor had held them. She looked at her own hands, and sat on them. She didn't want to see them.

* * *

The next morning she woke early. "I'm up," she half-shouted, "see I'm not a lazy bones," but then she fell into silence, realising that she was not yet home. She sat on her bed and cried again. She was so pathetic. She sobbed uselessly, tearing at her own hair.

Rose thought of that night again and hated herself.

Rose knew it had been what she had wanted, but now that she had got it, she realised that she couldn't keep him.

It was bad enough how her mother looked at him.

The age gap was unthinkable.

* * *

She thought of going down to breakfast, hoping the Doctor would have already started working on the TARDIS.

It was then that she tried to wipe her eyes, to try to hide that she had been crying, but only succeeded in rubbing mascara on her sleeve. She kicked the door loudly and cursed.

She would have to put new make-up on. She could just imagine Daphne's face if she saw her like this. She would sneer.

Rose bustled out of her room and off to the bathroom. Erin had pointed it out to her the morning before.

She opened the door hurriedly, and stared. She had stepped right into the room and gotten her bare feet wet. The floor was covered by a large puddle which seemed to be coming from a door to her left. Finally her childish curiosity got the better of her. She turned the doorknob and pushed on the door. It was hard work, something seemed to be jamming the door.

But eventually it opened ajar and more water flooded into the room. Rose squeezed through the gap and into the room. The first thing she noticed was the water. And then Daphne. She was lying in the bath, under the water. Rose leant across, her mind numb, and turned the tap off. She didn't want to waste all that good water. Her feet were freezing and starting to turn pink.

She looked down at Daphne. She had drowned herself in the bathtub. Her hair was strewn perfectly about her head as if she were an angel. It looked neat as if it had just been brushed, but Rose knew that it was just because of the water.

Rose reached a hand out. Her lips were blue. She was so pale. And just staring, staring at the ceiling, through all of that water.

Rose suddenly screamed, fighting back tears and tried to wrench Daphne from the water, as though she thought she was faking it. She cried, frustrated for no one was helping her, and eventually Daphne slipped from her grip and fell with a splash and a thud back under the water, just as a stone would.

There she lay, perfectly still and perfect in every other way.

Rose screamed again. It had been her fault, she knew it. She had been so mean to her. Rose tried to reason with herself. She had tried to steal the Doctor from you. You didn't know she would go and do that. How could you? The stupid girl. Stupid… Stupid.

Rose kicked the bathtub and yowled only hurting her foot. Daphne lay there, perfectly still, stuck in that very position as if she had simply fallen asleep with her eyes open.

* * *

Rose came running into the kitchen. The Doctor was sitting at the table, talking to Erin. He turned around as soon as he heard her hurried footsteps on the kitchen floor. "Rose?" He stood up.

"Drowned. Daphne. She did it. Just, just did it. Can you believe it? The audacity. DON'T YOU BELIEVE ME? I'm not being horrid!" They were all staring at her. She screamed and screamed and screamed. And laughed? The Doctor rushed to console her.

Erin didn't look shocked, but simply said: "Oh, mind, she never even said goodbye."

The Doctor had grabbed Rose, but she started to punch him and struggle against his hold. She was screaming still, but suddenly fell silent, shivering.

"It's okay," he told her. "It wasn't your fault. Don't be sad. It's what she wanted. She was dying, Rose – it was a brain tumour."

Rose was sobbing still but the words finally sunk in. Dying.

"Inoperable," Erin went on. "She had stopped eating but it wasn't quite enough I guess. Then she started with the absinthe, hoping to drink herself into a coma. I suppose her impatience got the better of her. She had given up and couldn't bear living anymore."

Rose sobbed and wiped her nose on her wet sleeve. She stared up at the Doctor. "You knew?" she said.

He nodded glumly.

Rose put her head on his shoulder, hoping she would just fall asleep that way. She hugged him close to her and sniffed loudly.

"The TARDIS is ready now," he told her, "I can take you home now."

She nodded, her face shining with tears. For now, she smiled to herself, he was hers.

* * *

Once Rose was inside the TARDIS she sat down and didn't say a word. She was thinking.

The Doctor was leant against the console, staring at her. And in spite of her shock, she smiled.

* * *

To be contined in _Sweep You off Your Feet_. Thanks for reading!


End file.
